1400 Pound Pallasite Unearthed in Kansas

Kansas is not ordinarily the sort of place you go looking for interesting igneous rocks. But that didn’t deter professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold. And two weeks ago he made a stupendous find…

The meteorite is classified as an “oriented pallasite.” Only two other meteorites of that type and magnitude are known: one that weighs 3,100 pounds, in Australia; and one that weighs 1,500 pounds, in Argentina.

Pallasites are a type of meteorite that has olivine crystals embedded in iron-nickel alloy.

And the fact that it is oriented, meaning it fell through the Earth’s atmosphere without spinning and formed a conical or bullet shape as its surface melted, makes it rare.